The Comiket organisers have announced their response to terrorist threats against the event is to ban all works featuring the subject of the threat – Kuroko’s Basketball – and hold Comiket 83 as normal, if absent the hundreds of circles comprised of Kuroko fans, a decision they blame on the police and venue.

It is exceedingly regrettable, but we must insist on suspending the participation of the below listed “Kuroko’s Basketball” circles [a long list of circles is attached], and ask any circles planning to distribute related goods to refrain from so doing.

This decision was made in order to protect the safety of participants and ensure the continuation of Comiket, and it is most inexcusable and we offer our sincere apologies.

They also provide their version of the events leading to the decision:

In October we received written threats demanding we not allow the participation of Kuroko’s Basketball related circles at Comiket 83.

As a result we coordinated with police and venue to tighten security as we did for 2008’s Comiket 74, where similar threats were received.

However, with the culprit’s threats having forced the complete cancellation of a Kuroko-only event in November, and with Jump Festa also cancelling its Kuroko-related activities, we were faced with the unprecedented and unyielding demand from the venue that we either postpone Comiket until the culprit was caught, or hold it without any Kuroko circles.

We also received similarly strong demands to not allow any Kuroko content from the police.

The venue and police raised the following objections at our discussions:

1. The threats appear to be escalating and may not end with Comiket and the venue

2. The threats were posted nearby and may actually be acted upon

3. The threats are starting to hinder non-doujin events at the venue

4. If something did happen the chaos would likely disturb nearby residents and businesses, and influence the holding of future events

5. Letting the sale of Kuroko related articles go ahead may further stimulate the culprit

We, the organisers, appreciate the nature of these concerns, but yielding to such wicked and base demands sets an odious precedent and so we would prefer to go ahead as normal with increased security, but the concerns of the police and venue were very strong and the safety of attendees is our highest priority, along with the likelihood of further restrictions on our use of the venue, so tragically we have no recourse but to go along with them.

We have no intention of issuing further restrictions and will endeavour to minimise all such restrictions in future, but there is only so much that is practical.

Obviously the person to blame here is the one making all the threats. It may be that they are only concerned with Kuroko, but this sort of behaviour may not stop at Kuroko, and could extend to anime and manga doujinshi of all kinds, and have a correspondingly negative social impact.

We’d like to express how much we’d like the culprit to stop this sort of behaviour.

Kuroko-related threats of chemical attacks have already been made against a school and have also forced the cancellation of other doujin events, and appear to be judged credible.

Some even feared Comiket itself might be forced to cancel, but it seems the result of them “considering their response” was a Kuroko ban instead, which is presumably judged a safe compromise between risking the threat of a gas attack and shutting down the world’s biggest anime event because of a crazed fan – the option of waiting for Japan’s police to catch the culprit having been overlooked for some reason.

All this has caused consternation amongst Comiket followers online (to say nothing of the poor Kuroko fans who are having their doujinshi systemically hounded out of existence by a maniac):

“Submitting to terrorism, we’ve seen how well that works.”

“So they’ve caved to the criminal? If they were going to do anything they would have done it already.”

“As usual, the police are really getting serious about this.”

“Rather than arresting people whose PCs were infected by viruses, why don’t you clods try arresting this guy?”

“Well, the safety of several hundred thousand people is at stake. Sorry fujoshi, you’ll just have to wait until they catch them.”

“They have cancelled the participation of 900 circles though…”

“It’s a bit damn late. They’ll all be preparing their doujinshi and have booked passage.”

“All this the result of some crazed fujoshi? Delicious.”

“Are they a man or a woman? I’d think a woman…”

“Seems the criminal is a real crazy though, not just the type who revels in the reaction his threats cause.”

“They’ve been making threats to any place related to the author. They are obviously completely out to lunch.”

“Why would anyone hate this manga so much?”

“What happens to Kuroko hardly matters, the real issue here is the precedent they have set. Anyone making similar threats can now expect to get any event they like shut down.”

“They have discovered how to shut down Comiket.”

“How can the police have completely failed to catch this person? They’ve been making threats for months, do they not care at all?”

“Have you seen some of the posts they’ve made? ‘Wait in fear lest I come die at your place’ – I bet the cops and everyone else would rather they did hurry up and die.”

“The culprit must really hate the author to be hounding all these Kuroko events into cancellation like this.”

“Everybody is laughing at the fujoshi now, but this has opened the floodgates to every nut who wants to get a particular title’s events cancelled. It’s not like any of the Kuroko fujoshi are going to have much love for Comiket after this.”

“Pretty amazing of them to single out Kuroko to be cancelled like this. Expect fireworks from the fans.”

“The worst thing you can do in the face of terrorism is give in to their demands. It’ll get a lot worse than this now.”

Maybe they just need to look for ways to conceal the material, like under different titles, or to make it available in a speakeasy way to all the true fans who can tell if they are and know what they are looking for. A hassle either way, but definitely not a no-go.

I wonder who the fatass virgin behind this mess is this time. I mean this isn’t even for any cause that people could see as worthy, not against religion, or against a political side, it’s for a FUCKING MANGA. One that parodies other manga.

Seriously. Fuck this guy. My only regret is not being able to send this message to him in japanese to express my disgust at how he is wasting his time and effort with terrorizing others over absolutely nothing.

The police probably caved because the social stigma against otaku is pretty good over in Japan. Why not let a terrorist have his way if it means some dirty otaku and momma’s boys cant have a convention? Better to keep them at home and out of public after all. It isnt fear as much as it’s killing two birds with one stone. Especially given that the threats are from an otaku as well.

Not that logical, after all it’s a gamble, there’s no guarantee they’d send someone to investigate, let alone turn up. But it’s viable. And it could be worse, schools tend to cancel classes when pranked in similar ways, so why couldn’t the event’s organizers.

Even if the KB-associated circles are left out in the cold, they still may be able to do their business there without making the organizers and the whole concept of the event liable for neglect if any sort of trouble ensues.

Comikete did a decent thing to protect its participants. What’s the problem is the police’s fault. Japanese police is just for show. If this were Britain or the US, any mention of “terrorist” would have the FBI, CIA, and M15/M16 doing everything they can to stop this nut. I imagine Russia’s KBG doing the same thing.

I would not rush to jugdement on the situation so quickly, because earlier someone did send letters with some sort of potentially harmful chemical agent and for all we know multiple people could be making these threats, and that may make it harder for police to catch them all on top of the fact they may not have much to go on.

Oh. They’ve probably concluded the perpetrator may be insane, but they still deserve to be happy. It is imposing upon the other attendees, but it stll can be worked around so that all the parties get what they want. Moreover, the police may now be more eager to help them with security. In turn, KB and whatever it targets gets notoriety. Many levels to this.

*feeds troll*
You are right, they should have totally spend billions of tax money to install a bunch of harmful scanners to solve a problem that could have been solved much more efficiently with a simple lock.

Seriously, I mean. If you don’t like something, ignore it. Trash it. Burn your own copies of the manga, and live happily after on. But stop pissing innocent people off. What did those 900 doujinshi circles, or entire Comiket staff/circles/attendants do wrong?

I sadly agree Comiket staff couldn’t help but cope and ban, since they would take responsibility for thousands of lives should an accident really take place. Especially with such incompetent police. It’s simply not just their own decision.

I’d love to stand up and say “Try if you dare, and I’ll make you regret it”. But I can’t put other people’s lives at stake.

I always knew japan was a bunch of pussies. I was stationed there once, and flirted with some yakuza dudes girlfriend. His entire group walked up to me and tried to intimidate me, but I just knocked one of their lights out and the rest ran away like little bitches.

There were several other times I had run-ins with the so called tough guys and it ended up with me feeling sorry for them.

Ironically if they would just ignore this terrorist he’d probably go away, but instead Japanese police continues to meet his every demand even though this nutjob hasn’t done anything but send harmless letters with threats in them.

Japanese law enforcement is an embarrassment to their entire nation. Ignore this idiot and he’ll stop it.

You do realize that because of this any nut can just name a series he hates and do the same thing and expect the same results, right? What would people be saying if this was some anti-Touhou terrorist?

money, their own asses, and the safety of the attendees…I hate to agree with them (and they’re definitely going overboard), but better to not allow the thing inciting the threat than to cancel outright.

I agree that it seems highly unlikely that they would actually act on these “threats”. It’s almost certainly just someone trolling this group of fans for their own amusement. If they actually intended to do an attack at one of these events, they would attack first, and explain their actions afterward. Caving in to their baseless threats will just get them to keep trolling, and encourage copycats to do the same.

You speak as if everyday-chemicals can’t be turned into weapons if you know what you’re doing. People like you is why 911 happened. Now go die in a fire so that other people won’t have to die for your complacency.

Actually, 9/11 happened because of discreet terrorist funding by the CIA to Jihadist groups in the late 70s and early 80s. The CIA provided weapons and training to extremist factions to oppose Soviet influence which has correlative effects on their belligerence today.

Actually 9/11 happened because Osama Bin Laden came from a wealthy family which ran huge businesses and was familiar with international financial mechanisms.

He applied modern management techniques, organization, structure, training, financing, and long range planning (plus computers) to Islamic terrorism. Instead of a bunch of bearded assholes running around shooting rifles in the air and screaming “Admiral Akbar” he created a sophisticated organization capable of projecting force effectively.

That is true the CIA funded and trained the people who eventually form Al Qaeda in for the purpose of making the Soviet Union loose the Soviet Afghan war and probably contributed to it’s collapse.
But like a Frankenstein monster the CIA’s creation eventually turned on them.
They thought they could just train these crazies and forget about them once they achieved their goal.
Also didn’t consider that the Soviets taking over Afghanistan probably would have clean up the region.

Those are some pretty wide sweeping dots you are trying to connect there with the 1970’s & 9/11. Might as well go further back in time to find your connections…you see there wewre these crusades in the middle ages…

What do you mean with “weapon”? Something which you can assault 1-2 people with, or a mass-murder weapon? I don’t really think a single crazed fan can assemble and take along enough sarin gas to intoxicate people in a 30.000 square meters hall. Hell yes, he/she could create enough panic, which would be much much more dangerous considering people density inside. But still…

And don’t compare such ideas with 911. Do you really expect he/she to hijack a plane and fly over TBS?

I think given the high density of the event using chemical stuff would be pretty effective. They couldn’t even evacuate quickly if the need arised. And if you use stuff that works really slowly it isn’t unthinkable to have all of them poisoned before they even noticed what’s going on. Add to that the panic that ensures when they figure out what’s what et voilà.

I just keep thinking and _these_ are the people everyone was so terrified and worried about in World War II? The implacable enemy who everyone was sure would fight to the bitter end and never surrender even if Japan itself was invaded causing a bloody war of attrition? It’s amazing how much things can change in just a few generations.

Well all the MEN were killed in banzai suicide rushes and kamikaze attacks. now all thats left are BOYS who are so butthurt their favorite manga has ONE page copied. That should be a compliment but NOOO.

Also i was thinking Railgun’s Kuroko Shirai =P Glad it isn’t her. She’s too awesome to be banned.

Nothing, and I’ll say again, nothing could stimulate further action from the terrorist more than this.
Not only the supposed terrorist completely defeated the police in a public display of shame, but also made a huge event and other smaller ones subject to his/her will, at the cost of the will, money, dedication and effort of others.
If anything was ever done to pursuit the terrorist, it became totaly useless with this – it means the police has no clue and don’t even think they can catch the culprit in any given time.
Worst of all: If this is the sort of action Comiket, following police “counceling”, is willing to take in cases like this – there will be more terrorists, more terrorism, and more problems on the next events.
It’s simple like this. If threats proves to be this effective, there will be tons of people who will be willing to do similar stuff to change Comiket plans on their will.

Always beware of otouto tactics. It may be the same thing they’ve done to you, but only now has the attention of all the parents been alerted, and it’s you who’d come across as the wicked. The ban would miraculously find the justification it lacks so far.

That, and I feel bad for the mangaka of Kuroko. The cancellation of those previous events must already have been a shock. With this the industry is demonstrating a continual reluctance to stand up for him and the series may well be finished.

Well, Japanese police don’t usually have guts to stand up to dangerous people, but if it has to do with prostitution, drunk driving (on a bike), or deadly threats (especially with gas, like the subway incident)… it seems they’ve at least got some of their priorities straight. You won’t see a lot of people attempting this without preparing a suicide note, just in case they’re caught.

In other words, it’s easy to threaten to get others to meet your demands, and it usually works. But the risk in getting caught is severe. You don’t want to go to Japanese prison. I don’t have personal experience there, but I studied quite a few cases. You can trust me on that.

Depends what country that is.
I heard conflicting stories some saying they are very bad a shame to a first world country and others saying they’re not so bad.
It might be like the US where it depends which prison you end up in and how you act while in it.

I heard prisons in Wisconsin are not so bad esp if you obey the rules but prisons in some parts of California and Texas are like being in a special place in hell.
Then there’s the fact minimum security is far less horrible then maximum security.
A minimum security prison in the US is sometimes described like a summer camp with strict rules while a maximum security is somewhere you don’t ever want to ever drop the soap.

No, it’s just that all the total crazies somehow find their way into otaku culture and get passionate about crap to the point where they start issuing death threats. It’s people like these that scared abgrund away from drawing traps. It blows, but it would seem not everyone has the balls to deal with the stress these nuts cause.

Executing a terrorist attack on a large group of people takes a bit more organization than killing one young girl in a fit of rage.
An idiot who doesn’t measure the consequences would not be able to do it.

so the only thing japanese police is good for is arresting people who may or may not be praying at school girls………………………………… come to think of it, i am not surprised this guy was able to threat so much without even arresting him so far.

Where is Les Grossman when you need him? He taught us the proper response in dealing with terrorists:

“First, take a big step back… and literally, FUCK YOUR OWN FACE! I don’t know what kind of pan-pacific bullshit power play you’re trying to pull here, but Asia Jack is my territory. So whatever you’re thinking, you’d better think again! Otherwise I’m gonna have to head down there and I will rain down in a Godly fucking firestorm upon you! You’re gonna have to call the fucking United Nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I’m talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I WILL FUCK YOU UP!”